Load bearing walls of buildings are constructed from a variety of materials including wood, steel, and concrete. The type of material that is used depends upon numerous factors, including, for example, the cost of the material, the anticipated loads on the material, the size of the building, the ease with which the building can be constructed using the material, and the strength of the material.
Wood frame construction is commonly used. The use of wood is attractive because it is generally cheaper than equivalent steel and concrete construction. However, wood frame construction is generally limited to buildings having about four stories or less. Further, the use of wood consumes valuable environmental resources, and is generally not as fire resistant as the counterpart steel and concrete alternatives. Steel is also commonly used for both single level and multi-level buildings.
Concrete has many advantageous properties that make it suitable for building construction. For example, concrete has excellent fire protection properties. In addition, concrete has excellent durability, as well as favorable vibration and sound transmission characteristics.
The use of concrete to form load bearing walls is known. One example is disclosed by Fintel et al. in “Staggered Transverse Wall Beams For Multistory Concrete Buildings—A Detailed Study”, Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill. (circa. 1968). The concrete walls disclosed in this publication are cast-in-place structures, where the concrete is poured at the building site to form the walls.
The construction industry has seen an increasing use of prefabricated building components for constructing buildings. Prefabricated building components permit faster erection times, and can reduce the number of construction personnel at the building site, thereby resulting in an overall reduction in building costs.
However, current concrete construction, whether prefabricated or cast-in-place, requires a uniform gridwork of closely spaced columns, including interior columns, to support the floor elements of the building. The interior columns extend through functional space within the building, including living space and parking space, thereby interfering with the use and function of that space within the building.
There is a continuing need for prefabricated concrete building components that reduce or eliminate the use of interior columns. There is also a need for prefabricated concrete building components that can be economically used in multi-level building that are, for example, higher than four stories.